I was itching to come here and mention the relevance of Anne Heche in the lead role and then got to the update and you nailed it. I don't think the youths watching this movie would fully contextualize how homophobic society was in the 90s and how Heche would've been seen as a subversion of the classic Hollywood female lead by basically everyone.
I always thought a virtually shot-for-shot remake of PSYCHO was the kind of thing Van Sant should've gotten out of his system as a film student, where it would actually be useful as a teaching tool. As a $25M movie (his most expensive project to that point) that Universal poured an estimated $35M more into promotion to a largely teen-aged audience, it felt to me at the time like something Van Sant should've done on the cheap like Hitchcock did.
I think the queer themes you discuss in your piece would have come through much more clearly if it had cost $5M-$10M and didn't have stars who brought their own baggage to the roles.
While I liked reading your piece on the PSYCHO remake, I still think Van Sant could've gotten as good as, if not better than, a cast for a lot less. Not so much Anne Heche as Vince Vaughn, who seemed all wrong to play Norman Bates—that's like hiring Sylvester Stallone to play Mr. Marchbanks in Shaw's CANDIDA!
Also, was Anne Heche so big she'd balloon the budget out of whack? It seems to me she was always more critically admired than popular with audiences....
I was itching to come here and mention the relevance of Anne Heche in the lead role and then got to the update and you nailed it. I don't think the youths watching this movie would fully contextualize how homophobic society was in the 90s and how Heche would've been seen as a subversion of the classic Hollywood female lead by basically everyone.
I always thought a virtually shot-for-shot remake of PSYCHO was the kind of thing Van Sant should've gotten out of his system as a film student, where it would actually be useful as a teaching tool. As a $25M movie (his most expensive project to that point) that Universal poured an estimated $35M more into promotion to a largely teen-aged audience, it felt to me at the time like something Van Sant should've done on the cheap like Hitchcock did.
I think the queer themes you discuss in your piece would have come through much more clearly if it had cost $5M-$10M and didn't have stars who brought their own baggage to the roles.
Well, I think casting Heche was pretty important! Moore seems kind of a camp icon too in some ways...idk. Like I said, I enjoyed it.
While I liked reading your piece on the PSYCHO remake, I still think Van Sant could've gotten as good as, if not better than, a cast for a lot less. Not so much Anne Heche as Vince Vaughn, who seemed all wrong to play Norman Bates—that's like hiring Sylvester Stallone to play Mr. Marchbanks in Shaw's CANDIDA!
Also, was Anne Heche so big she'd balloon the budget out of whack? It seems to me she was always more critically admired than popular with audiences....
I thought Vaughn was kind of an interesting choice since he was so physically different.